In the long history of evolution it has not been necessary for man to understand multi-loop nonlinear feedback systems until very recent historical times. Evolutionary processes have not given us the mental skill needed to properly interpret the dynamic behavior of the systems of which we have now become a part.

J. W. Forrester, 1971

Monday, May 26, 2014

The politicizing of the carbon management debate by monied interests has prevented thoughtful debate

by Jon Phillips

A
critical topic for us, our children, their children and so forth for
generations.

US carbon emissions in the energy sector have dropped since
2007 and will remain under the 2007 peak for the next few decades if
projections on natural gas hold and exports fail to materialize.
Historically cheap natural gas, enabled by hydro fracture drilling
technology has granted a temporary reprieve through the economic
destruction of the US coal generation industry.

The politicizing of the
carbon management debate by monied interests has prevented thoughtful
debate over optimal economic approaches to manage carbon such as tax and
dividend with tariffs on trade. Instead, in a surprising SCOTUS decision, the Clean Air Act will be used to manage carbon through
emission cap regulation. The problem is that it's a rather blunt
instrument. With any luck, the new regulation proposed by the
Administration will engage shortly. New coal plants will be constrained
to operate with emissions comparable to small natural gas turbine
plants. This implies that to build a new coal plant, you'll have to put
~40% effective carbon capture and sequestration on the plant or you
can't get a license.

Declining power generation from coal, January 2007 to January 2012 (EIA)

There's really no more thermal efficiency that can
be pulled out of new super-critical coal plants except by going to
co-generation. Usually, the capital risk economics don't work out on
that. The short answer is that this will likely block most new coal
generation. Meanwhile, old coal plants are struggling to meet new
emission limits on mercury and the cost of upgrades is not competitive
against decommissioning and building a combined cycle natural gas plant.
Old plants are retiring at a steady clip and new plants will be
blocked. If this continues, in a couple decades, the coal era will end
in the US. You can imagine the angst in the coal States.

Unfortunately,
this won't solve our most serious threat. It won't even touch it.
Non-OECD carbon emissions have doubled since 2005 and global emissions
have gone up 50% in the same decade! Global emissions are set to rise
another 40 to 50% by 2025 while OECD emissions remain essentially flat
since 2007 (the US among them).

If we can't drastically bend down the
curve in the developing world, it's game over. They're now producing
twice the carbon of the developed world and there's nothing suggesting
that their explosion in emissions will retrench. The real question is
how to get the developing world's house in order.

Meanwhile, 'Mericans
scrabble with each other about how to go to lower numbers domestically,
but the globe's pants are being pulled down in the developing world. The
only solution is to quickly get serious, put our own house in order and
launch a climate change "Marshall Plan." We have to go all in against
coal. Otherwise it's the future until the climate is truly toast. But
what does that mean?

Renewables? Yes! Nuclear? Yes and lots of it!
Natural gas? Yes! But to execute a Marshall Plan we need to disconnect
the advantage of cheap coal in the developing world. In the first
instance that means carbon tariffs on trade (perhaps the most important
mechanism of all since we're the dumping ground of cheap products based
on coal electricity). It also means getting our natural gas glut into
the international market to get the price of electricity up high enough
to convert the infrastructure.

Hopefully President Obama's big push on new LNG
terminals will move forward quickly because of the Ukraine geopolitics.
Monied interests, fat and lazy sucking down cheap US natural gas, and a
few odd confused environmentalists lacking a global perspective, have
battled the Administration all the way. We need low carbon technology.
All of it at massive scale right away.___________________________________Jon Phillips, PhD, is a Senior Technology Expert at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, and is the Director of the Sustainable Nuclear Power Initiative at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in Richland, Washington. The opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the IAEA or PNNL.

1 comment:

See Charles Komanoff's blog post in the Carbon Tax Center on the fallacy of cap and trade as a mechanism to reduce emissions here: http://www.carbontax.org/blogarchives/2014/05/30/the-thin-reed-supporting-the-white-houses-legacy-climate-plan/

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So long and thanks for all the fish

So long and thanks for all the fish
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Which might explain your disrespect
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Richard Badalamente earned his BS in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Southern California and MS–Human Factors and PhD-Behavioral Science from Texas Tech. He is an author at http://tinyurl.com/pakn8el